We also have numerical symbolism in everyday usage. For example, we say, "Ha has a fifty-fifty chance" or "six of one and half a dozen of another." I heard a news commentator, after presenting fifteen minutes of the news, close with, "That's thirty for tonight." Was he lying? If you take him literally, yes. But if you understand what he is communicating, no. Such figures of speech we use all the time without implying a literal interpretation.
A little reflection would suggest the danger of literalizing a general number. A guide in the Yosemite National Park drove a group of tourists throught the valley. As they rode throguh the big trees, one of the visitors asked the guide if he knew how old the trees were. "Yes, indeed, I know, ma'am. Them trees is three thousand and six years old, goin' on three thousand and seven.
Amazed at the accurate knowledge the old fellow displayed, the persistent tourist asked, "But how do you know the number exactly?"
"Well, it's this way," the guide explained. "There was a smart young woman out here from Boston, and she said them trees was three thousand years old. And that was a little over six years ago, so I figger they must be goin' on three thousand and seven.
We must appreciate the nature of language. In attemopting to influence people, it is important to discuss the matter at hand on the basis of their own background and interests. Let us suppose that we see a dirigible and want to convince people that it is amazingly long. To the fellow acrossed the street we say it would reach three whole buckets, all the way from Elm to Lincoln Street; to a farmer we would describe it as twice as long as his own pasture lot; or to a New Yorker we ould state that its length equals the height of the Crysler building. Consequently we make an impression on each man because we talk to him in terms of his own experience. We "tune in" on him.
Thus we must see the 144,000 in terms of language meaningful to John and not hang ourselves over the literal interpretations we might wish to make today. To match a literal number with an obviously symbolic passage - which indicates a symbolic interpretation - would be incongruous and could not possibly be a meaningful solution to John's concern. But, taking 144,000 symbolically, we can find a real answer, both to John and to us.
The fourth line of evidence comes from our own church counsel. "Christ says that there will be those in the church who will present fables and suppositions, when God has given grand, elevating, ennobling truths, which should ever be kept in the treasure-house of the mind. When men pick up this theory and that theory, when they are curious to know something that it is not necessary for them to know, God is not leading them. It is not His plan that His people shall present something which they have to suppose, which is not taught in the Word. It is not his will that they shall get into controversy over questions which will not help them spiritually, such as who is to compose the hundred and forty-four thousand" (MS 26,1901).
"The let no man attempt to number Israel today, but everyone have a heart of flesh, a heart of tender sympathy, a heart that, like the heart of Christ, reaches out for the dsalvation of a lost world" (PK 189).
Whatever the actual number, it is not the point of the message. Then what is? If Israel is spiritual, if the number is symbolic, what is God saying to us?
Look at the setting in Revelation 6:12-17. John describes a scene that becomes the immediate backdrop of Revelation 7 in which we find the 144,000. "And I beheld when He had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the nighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the trone, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?"
After John saw the vision, he felt crushed, and the question he asked, if we put it into our own langauge was, "Who can make it?" Revelation 7 is God's attempt to answer his question, but we have not been listening because we have been fussing over our petty theories. We've been wanting to label the 144,000 in terms of a literal people and trying to find out who is going to be among them. We've never heard what God sought to say.
John asked the question, "Who can make it?" And God wants to tell us. I think that God has three points about the 144,000 He seeks to get acrossed to us in chapter 7 of Revelation.
The first point is that God will have a people who can make it. The all-encompassing term He used to express the fact is "144,000." Scripture uses the unit twelve to represent completeness of divine order. The figure 144,000 (twelve times twelve thousand) shows that God's true people, spiritual Israel, will be complete. God will forget no one that truely reflects His goodness. Thus the figure becomes a meaningful expression to John to signify the great reality that God'speople will come from every walk of life. In other words, God will, without partiality, find His people from every nation, kindred, tongue, and people. God will have a people.
To attempt to label the group and thereby restrcit salvation to an arbitrary number runs contrary to the whole point of the message and becomes a diabolical counterfeit of truth. Had it been the point, God's answer to John would have confirmed him in his discouragement over the future, not to mention the pessimistic outlook that it would force upon us. Let's quit playing the opart of God and leave the specific numbering and selection to Him. All we need to know is that God will have a people.
The members of a crew on a submarione prepared to take battle stations, and the ships captain worried about a young seaman second class who's job involved closing the watertight doors between certain compartments. The boy didn't semm to realize his responsibility and the captain undertook to impress him. He told him that if he failed in his job, the ship might be lost, and it cost around eight million dollars. Not only that, some of the men aboard were specialists, and it cost Uncle Sam thousands of dollars to train each one of them. The men might drown. "So you see how important it is that you do your job right - this very expensive ship, these important men," the captain concluded.
"Yes sir!" replied the lad., "and then there's me too!" The captain stopped worrying.
That's what Godis saying to us, "There's me too!" John was concerned. We are concerned. But we forget that God is concerned. The guarantee of a people rests on God's purpose for our race. The Lord wants us to belong more than we could ever want to. We must not separate the 144,000 message from God's program. His character is at stake. There will be a people.
The second point of the message is that God will find them everywhere. Twelev tribes represent the total spiritual community in Israel. History has wiped out the twelve tribes in the flesh, but God will preserve the twelve tribes in the spirit. We read in Revelation 21:10-14 the description of the New Jerusalem: "And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me t hat great city, the holy Jerusalem, desending out of heaven from God, having . . . twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twleve tribes of the children of Israel. . . . And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb." Do you see the spiritual continuity from the Old to the New testament into the New Jerusalem?
